


Mise en place

by Petra



Category: The Hour
Genre: F/M, Vanilla Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-25 15:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything must look perfect at all times. (Spoilers for series 2.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mise en place

**Author's Note:**

> Vanilla kink for Kink Bingo and [](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/)**thatyourefuse**.

Everything must look perfect at all times, the kitchen where Marnie waits for Hector, the dinner she cooks for him, and the makeup she wears while she looks at the clock, wondering where he can be this time. When he will be back. Whether he will be back--but she is nearly certain of that. She would rather plan a menu than wonder whether he is working until hours in earnest this time, or seeking some sort of solace with the exquisite girls he prefers to his wife--who is as exquisite as she can make herself, though no longer twenty.

For a man whose most public achievement to date is named after a unit of time, Hector Madden is a terrible dilly-dallier. She does understand his past reluctance to come home to the immaculate pink bed whose covers are turned back invitingly, the precise distance that gives a sense of openness without wantonness.

She understands him far better than he will ever admit she does. Hector is a man whose surface is buffed to a high polish, sometimes literally in those days when he came home directly from the studio--comes home from the studio--without taking the time to wash first.

Marnie has put on her face without a smudge after four hours' sleep while drinking her breakfast, and she will do it again if she must. When she has to entertain for Hector, she will always do what she must, wherever he's been. But it is far simpler now that she has her own secrets, the things she hid from Hector for a time, but better still the things she hides from everyone else.

She does not plan her menus for the lights and heat of a studio now; though it will be some time before she is showing, ITV wants none of her, and none of Hector, least of all what they can do together.

Or, in certain clandestine cases, apart, but she would not mention such a thing to mere producers, not the ones who rejected her at least.

There is the odd producer she feels she might befriend, despite all that has gone on and everything Hector is.

The next time Hector's eye wanders, Marnie rather hopes it will wander back to Miss Rowley. They might all be close, this time, with a few small confessions and lovely Mr Lyon besides, who might have learned to manage such things from his _belle femme_ , that is, the one who left, not the one who stayed. Any efforts might bring a breath of scandal, but less by far than the gossip that has already swirled around Hector.

It is far more difficult to conceal that past than to hide the faint wrinkles she acquired while she was doing everything she could not to worry about it overmuch. Even the sleek pink sheets of a marital bed once again shared do not swallow it down; she cannot scrub it off of the countertop like the leftover flour from breading pork.

"We will do what we must to keep up appearances," she says in her kitchen to the only person there to hear her, who has ears now, the doctor said, but who cannot answer her yet. "Your daddy will be home soon." And whatever else Hector is, whatever true curses he might have laid on her and her tiny audience, he is that.

She lays out the ingredients for breakfast: eggs, bread, and butter for Hector, who needs to keep his strength up because he will forget to eat; the oats for the porridge that is all she can stomach at the moment. Sometimes she can barely stand to cook for him, but Marnie has her pride. If he is there for breakfast--and he will be, unless the news is breaking and he rings to tell her where he's been all the night long--then she will have his food on the table as a good wife must.

His key turns in the lock while she sets the table for breakfast. "Sorry, darling," he says, and comes close enough to kiss her.

He smells of the smoke and ink so thick at the studio, and no more of alcohol than he might after an evening at home. The only perfume lingering in his hair is Miss Rowley's, and if a lady must work until midnight, she deserves to refresh her scent in order to keep her spirits up. Marnie kisses Hector's cheek and lets herself stay near enough to him that they can embrace. "Will you give me the 'scoop'?"

"There's been some uproar with the CND," he says, a quirk at the corner of his mouth that reminds her why she loved him once, and loves him still. "I've had an easier time sympathizing with them since--" and he looks at her, warming her heart with his possessiveness.

It turned her stomach for a time, but now it is forgiveness and love. He sees her and the child, and he loves them both. "I'm sure your audience will understand," she says, and leans against him for a moment, feeling safe despite the nuclear threat around the world. At least there are people protesting, for what good it may do, and Hector is making sure their voices are heard. She kisses him again, lightly, and realizes he does not taste of chips or anything else that might, in a pinch, pass as a meal. "Did you eat?"

Hector frowns faintly as he tries to recall. "I don't think so, no. Not what you would call a proper meal. Catch as catch can, you know. A sandwich for tea." He does not mention what he has drunk. Neither will she.

"Sit down, sit down." At least the table is set. "I'll make you a drink and then, perhaps, breakfast, a few hours early."

He laughs and says, "That would be excellent," which is more than her offer deserves. She would prefer to give him twelve courses, each perfectly timed, but not without notice.

She will make it up to him when he is home at the proper time, and when her stomach can bear more complex meals again. For the moment, she says, "Tell me about the rest of the news, darling," and poaches two eggs.  



End file.
